what a shock, Celtic and Man City friendly a draw

By: j | August 6th, 2008

The other day, after hobbling off the pitch, there was this other little makeshift practice going on and a wonderful reminder why this game is so beautiful. Set up to the side of the stands was another “pitch” maybe ten or so meters long, where a group of three and four year-olds were playing. Organized well with matching kits, that I’m sure on more than one occasion end up as night-shirts, parents were dotted on each of the four corners. The little ones were scurrying around their pitch, kicking the ball here and there and just having a grand old time. I’m not sure if there was a score or if anyone would really care if they did but I’m pretty confident in the end they and their parents were overjoyed with the night. Those moments will likely be forgotten by the kids just as fast as the next bed-time story but for the parents they’ll live forever like an old picture pressed between life’s pages.

I feel pretty much the same of the Celtic versus Man City friendly (although I’m hopeful that the night-shirt thingy is a no-go). It was a lot of fun, some good promise and even a better match than I expected. And while it did end in precisely as a feel-good 1-1 draw as I predicted this was likely the best friendly City has played this pre-season.

As it relates to a general review, I think I need to just cut and paste the next two sentences for the balance of the campaign. Martin Petrov continues to above a cut above the rest of the City squad. The twenty-nine year-old Bulgarian international is surely one of the most valuable players to his team in the Premier League and once again, was the catalyst to City’ attack. Martin Petrov is a machine, I mean a machine and for all this cash they were apparently going to dish-out elsewhere, throw some his direction and make sure you don’t lose him. No offense to the rest of the squad but right now he is dialed-in at entire different level. The striking combination of Daniel Sturridge and Darius Vassell gelled and the set-up to Martin Petrov’s goal was sublime. A perfect redirection off the chest by Darius Vassell to Daniel Sturridge who then passed to Martin who then left-footed passed the human wall (that some refer to as Artur Boruc). Along with Jô, Ched Evans and the resurgence of Valeri Bojinov, Mark Hughes has five strikers he surely is very confident of. One very surprising element was a strong passing connection between Tal Ben Haim and Martin Petrov which opened up a completely unexpected counter-attacking ability. While I had hoped to see more of the youth movement, hopefully that’s in-store for us against AC Milan on Saturday.